The reviews say its not a DEFINITE collection, which is OK by me since those are really tiny details, but I'm more worried about the technical aspect of the book, lots of people mention that it isn't particularly well put together.

Splash Damage posted:

The reviews say its not a DEFINITE collection, which is OK by me since those are really tiny details, but I'm more worried about the technical aspect of the book, lots of people mention that it isn't particularly well put together.

Well, I have that edition, and its a hardback leatherbound book thats pretty huge. Its got plenty of stories and pictures and theres a nice little afterword at the end.

However, I don't know much about Lovecraft so I have no idea if this really is a collection of his best stories. Furthermore, I live in the UK so the version on Amazon.com could be different from the one sold over here.

I think some of the reviewers are expecting a little too much though. As an introduction to the mans works, I quite enjoyed it and I'm interested in reading more when I find the time.

Splash Damage posted:

The reviews say its not a DEFINITE collection, which is OK by me since those are really tiny details, but I'm more worried about the technical aspect of the book, lots of people mention that it isn't particularly well put together.

There's a free ebook version floating around the interwebs. Let me find it ..

I just noticed this on Goodreads, I don't know if it's a new feature or something, but pages for each book now have recommendations for other books, based on user ratings. It's in the right-hand column under the genre info.

They seem to be quite well matched books for an automated system. Better than Librarything's recommendations, from what I've seen. I'm going through all my favourite books now and seeing what it recommends, and I'm getting quite a few interesting looking titles

Why?! Why?! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market ?!!!

deety posted:

In the US, things published before 1923 are public domain, that includes some Lovecraft stories but I'm pretty sure there's nothing by Howard in that time frame.

I think there's *some* stuff by Howard but not the Conan stuff, or rather, the copyright status on the Conan stuff is ambiguous:

quote:

The name Conan and the names of Robert E. Howard's other principal characters are claimed as trademarked by Paradox Entertainment of Stockholm, Sweden, through its US subsidiary Paradox Entertainment Inc. Paradox copyrights stories written by other authors under license from Conan Properties Inc.
However, since Robert E. Howard published his Conan stories at a time when the date of publication was the marker (1932 through 1963), and any new owners failed to renew them to maintain the copyrights,[28] the exact copyright status of all of Howard's Conan works are in question.[29] In practice, most of the Conan stories exist in at least two versions subject to different copyright standards: The original Weird Tales publications before or shortly after Howard's death, which have been understood to be "public domain", and "restored" versions based on manuscripts that were unpublished in Howard's lifetime, for which current copyrights are easily defended.
The Australian site of Project Gutenberg has many Robert E. Howard stories, including several Conan stories.[30] This indicates that, in their opinion, the stories are free from copyright and may be used by anyone, at least under Australian law, which was 50 years from author's death until 2005. Subsequent stories written by other authors are subject to the copyright laws of the relevant time.
In the United Kingdom, 70 years after the death of an author his works fall into the public domain and as such the works of Robert E. Howard have now fallen into the public domain there.

Ornamented Death posted:

It's called the "Awful Book of the Month" not the "Something Awful Book of the Month." If you're upset or confused, it's your own fault for not reading A) the thread title and B) the second sentence in the OP ("In the Awful Book of the Month, we choose one work of literature utter crap and read it over a month. If we can finish it at all.").

Well I posted earlier about having a OCD order in regards to reading, currently I am trudging through Kj Parker This is where the OCD hurts when I obsessively read bad books. Ugh 2 more books to go and it will go away.

I think I am going to go back and read Kurt Vonnegut it's been a while.

Hollismason fucked around with this message at Aug 29, 2011 around 17:46

Odette posted:

I Am A Mom With A"BLACK BELT"In AUTISMI Have Strengths You Can't Imagine

Anyone interested in helping me to create a "Who am I"-type riddle about protagonists in books?

An example that I just made up:
"I can walk between worlds, I can manipulate shadows. I have 8 brothers and 4 sisters. I am a prince. I wield a silver sword. I recently regained my memories after centuries of amnesia. Who am I?"

I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle, unless you're writing this for someone who you know has heard of this river. It doesn't matter how good the clues are; if it's a totally obscure river, the riddle is basically unsolvable except by brute force or luck. Pick a river everyone's heard of - Dracula or Sherlock Holmes or Circe.

House Louse posted:

Definitely sounds like a river to me.

I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle, unless you're writing this for someone who you know has heard of this river. It doesn't matter how good the clues are; if it's a totally obscure river, the riddle is basically unsolvable except by brute force or luck. Pick a river everyone's heard of - Dracula or Sherlock Holmes or Circe.

There's a Sherlock Holmes River?

I've read the books so the answer didn't seem obscure to me but I'm not sure how "I can manipulate shadows" and "regained my memories after centuries of amnesia" = river. Am I missing out on an in-joke?

xcheopis posted:

There's a Sherlock Holmes River?

I've read the books so the answer didn't seem obscure to me but I'm not sure how "I can manipulate shadows" and "regained my memories after centuries of amnesia" = river. Am I missing out on an in-joke?

The form of your clue was very much like a traditional children's riddle, and "a river" would be a traditional answer to such a riddle.

Example:

I can run but I never walk; I have a mouth but I never talk; I have a bed but never sleep; I have a head but never weep. What am I?

DirtyRobot posted:

Speaking of Zelazny, I recently discovered that I own a signed paperback copy of Nine Princes in Amber (hooray used books!). But because I am a horrible person with negative dollars in my bank account, I want to look into selling it. Does anyone know how to find what the average price of such a thing would be? I trolled ebay for a bit but the price range was just ridiculous.

Radio! posted:

Speaking of Zelazny, I recently discovered that I own a signed paperback copy of Nine Princes in Amber (hooray used books!). But because I am a horrible person with negative dollars in my bank account, I want to look into selling it. Does anyone know how to find what the average price of such a thing would be? I trolled ebay for a bit but the price range was just ridiculous.

I hope it is okay if I ask this here!

I hate to poo poo on your dreams, but it's probably not worth a lot, unfortunately. The first and major strike is that it's a paperback, which means it's most definitely not a first edition (since that was hardcover and is stupidly rare). Next, since, again, it's a paperback, came from a used book store, and is at least 16 years old, I'm guessing it's not in great condition.

Zelazny is popular, but he never attained the level where his signature alone commands high prices, regardless of what it's on. You need the signature on a first edition in fine condition to start raking in real money. I imagine if you could find a sucker, you could get $20 out of him - a collector probably wouldn't pay more than five to ten.

For reference, the lowest-priced signed item on eBay is a PBO of Bridge of Ashes, and it's only going for $20. Granted, that isn't as popular a title as anything Amber, but even signed Amber hardcovers are going for less than $50 until you get into the limited edition stuff (and you're paying for that as much as the signature with those).

Radio! posted:

That's about what I figured. My friend is a huge Zelazny fan and offered to buy it immediately, so I didn't want to be a jerk and ask for a stupid amount of money. Thanks, though!

It was still a pretty cool thing to find.

Yeah, it's always nice to find little surprises like that. About ten years ago I picked up a cheap paperback copy of Damon Knight's The World and Thorinn to replace a copy I lost. About a year and a half ago I was entering stuff into LibraryThing and discovered that cheap paperback was signed by Knight. Not really worth much, but a very cool item to have.

Random question - did anyone else find it hard to get into Catch 22? By all accounts I should love it, but a friend and I independently started reading it a few months ago and gave up after a few chapters. We found it very hard to read and just didn't think that much of it. This was a coincidence, we didn't discuss it until recently, after we'd both given up on it.

Rage Nage posted:

Random question - did anyone else find it hard to get into Catch 22? By all accounts I should love it, but a friend and I independently started reading it a few months ago and gave up after a few chapters. We found it very hard to read and just didn't think that much of it. This was a coincidence, we didn't discuss it until recently, after we'd both given up on it.

So, is it known as a hard book to get into?

I got into it pretty easily, but on this very subforum there have been several people with the same experience as you. The most common advice is to not give up because everything comes together very nicely after a bit. The hardest thing for me was just keeping track of all of the characters.

Mind_Taker posted:

I got into it pretty easily, but on this very subforum there have been several people with the same experience as you. The most common advice is to not give up because everything comes together very nicely after a bit. The hardest thing for me was just keeping track of all of the characters.

Rage Nage posted:

Random question - did anyone else find it hard to get into Catch 22? By all accounts I should love it, but a friend and I independently started reading it a few months ago and gave up after a few chapters. We found it very hard to read and just didn't think that much of it. This was a coincidence, we didn't discuss it until recently, after we'd both given up on it.

So, is it known as a hard book to get into?

I've started it numerous times and never finished. I liked a lot of it, but at a certain point it felt like I was just getting a cast of characters and no real action or reason to care about them. I usually get as far as Major Major Major and then the book slows to a crawl and I tap out. I'm fairly certain I would enjoy it if I pushed through but I have literary ADD or something and tend to jump ship whenever I spot the next shiny book.